Episode 10.5
Episode 10.5 is the fifth episode in Series 10, and the 107th episode overall. It was first aired on 24 July 2019. Official description A Hollyrock film company comes to town to film 'Cleaver', and gullible Fred is enlisted as stand-in for star Billy Baldwin. When Fred sees the final cut he is annoyed at how he has been portrayed and he confronts Christopher. Summary Episode 10.5 is the first episode in Mad As Hell's history that does not feature the normal opening titles. Following the broadcasting error of the prior week, Episode 10.5 begins with the opening titles of Adam Hills Tonight, an old ABC show that aired between 2011 and 2013. Shaun is then seen stumbling through the set of Adam Hills Tonight before the man from the normal Mad As Hell opening titles bursts through a greenscreen and onto the Mad As Hell set. After storming across the set and confusing Shaun with his presence, the man opens a window at which point the final moments of the regular opening titles are seen. Shaun's begins by discussing the previous week's programming error, where the ABC broadcast a repeat of Episode 10.3 instead of 10.4. He laments the paradoxical nature of the situation: "It's pretty tough doing a weekly news satire show, particularly when the show itself becomes the news. And things aren't made any easier when they also don't broadcast the show for that week. And these two circumstances, when combined, create a perfect storm - a news week dominated by the very absence of the program that should be making jokes about itself." Shaun then switches his focus to the news that opposition leader Anthony Albanese had banned Labor Party MPs calling the government "liars". He provides alternative phrases that MPs could instead use and quips that Labor MPs of the past - from Billy Hughes to Bill Shorten - wouldn't have had a problem telling the government they were "talking out of their arse". Shaun chats with Leo Hatred about Scott Morrison rejecting calls to increase Newstart. During the interview, Shaun and Leo quote the song The Price of Love: Shaun: "So that's the price of love? The price of love. A debt you pay with tears and pain. The price of love, the price of love..." Leo: "But it costs you more when you're to blame. How good's blame?" Shaun analyses New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern's recent visit to Australia, including the fact that Scott and Jenny Morrison's gifted Ardern a stuffed toy rabbit, Ardern's plane breaking down stranding her in Melbourne, and the push from Australian politicians to send Kiwi criminals back to New Zealand. Shaun briefly talks to a human services employee about a Centrelink scammer who was given 200 years to repay the stolen money. The unnamed employee states that 200 years is how long it will take for the scammer's call to go through to Centrelink. Shaun chats with Draymella Burt about Scott Morrison's rejection to increase Newstart despite Barnaby Joyce and John Howard calling for it to be increased. Draymella states that a bigger gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' can only be a good thing because then the 'have-nots' will have even more aspiration to become 'haves'. She goes on to say: "And Labor's Robin Hood approach of taking from the rich and giving to the poor is pointless anyway because, if you do it long enough, the poor become rich and you have to take the money back off them." Shaun turns his attention to controversial comments from Assistant Minister for Homelessness, Luke Howarth during the week who attempted to put a positive spin on the Australian homelessness rate by stating that 99.5% of Australians in fact do have a home. Shaun presses Assistant Assitant to the Assistant Minister, Veal Goof on the insensitivity of Mr Howarth's comments however she remains positive and praises Mr Howarth throughout the interview. Shaun switches focus to Australia's slowing wage growth and increasing household debt, stating that businesses have been increasingly hiring more debt collectors. Shaun interviews Wendell Vestibule about his actions following this news. Wendell states that when he saw the economy getting worse, he took out a big loan to buy shares in a debt collection agency however the dividends he received from the shares weren't enough to repay the interest he had on the loan so the debt collection agency hunted him down and repossessed his shares. Wendell goes on to state that due to the increased demand for the shares the company was able to sell the repossessed shares at a higher price. Wendell then tells of how he took out an even bigger loan and bought those shares back at a loss. Shaun then talks to commercial cheat Francis Pope, but in a fourth-wall-breaking moment, Francis removes his stick-on moustache and reveals himself to be Wendell Vestibule. "No, I'm actually Wendell Vestibule from the previous and similarly constructed sketch earlier." Taking a break from the studio, a mobile-recorded video clip is shown of a woman swearing on a train and squirting a bottle of water at fellow passengers. This clip is revealed to be part of a new show titled Shaun Micallef's Great Australian Railway Journeys, coming to the ABC on Saturdays at 6:30pm. Returning to the studio, Shaun complains about Leigh Sales' joke on 7.30 during the week comparing the physical attractiveness of George Clooney with Shaun's relative lack of attractiveness. Shaun examines the renewed push for nuclear power plants to be built in Australia, and Barnaby Joyce's idea that if someone can see a new nuclear reactor from their house they will receive their electricity for free. Shaun speaks to friend of Barnaby Joyce's from the pub who gives him ideas, Mick Nobone about this proposal. Shaun crosses to Concretia Doily with this week's numbers. Concretia says it's another good week for 9 in the single digits category, tells of how numbers such as 1,000,000,000 are still struggling to move past 1,000,000,001, and declares the big winner of the week to be 'infinity'. "And we did try to contact 'infinity' for comment but unfortunately it couldn't be reached." Shaun then discusses the soon-to-be-enacted ban on climbing Uluru and Pauline Hanson's comparison of this to a hypothetical banning of people going to Bondi Beach. Shaun agrees with this comparison and uses video footage to demonstrate some of the "rich culture" of Bondi Beach such as people dancing naked on it, people mooning passers-by on it, people beating each other up on it, and laying around on the sun in it - ironically in an attempt to darken the colour of their skin. Shaun examines comments by Deputy Treasury Secretary Meghan Quinn the best way to achieve a pay rise would be to switch jobs. Shaun speaks to Bev who says that even though she was getting well paid in her job as an architect, she took Meghan Quinn's advice and switched jobs to start doing late shifts at her local 7-Eleven. She then kept switching jobs in a search for a higher wage such as working at Domino's Pizza, doing fruit-picking, the Queensland Nickel refinery, Uber driving, a short stint with George Calombaris as head of the wage theft division, drug mule, skywriting, carnival barker, theatre critic, and now, busking. She concludes by revealing that she has lost her house. Shaun segues to the segment Plain Speakin' to discuss George Calombaris' underpayment of staff by nearly $8 million. Shaun clarifies that this case is separate to a previous case where Calombaris was found to have underpaid overtime to his staff over a period of six years, although comments that surely underpaying overtime just cancels one another out. Character appearances * Leo Hatred * Unnamed human services employee * Draymella Burt * Veal Goof * Wendell Vestibule * Francis Pope (who turns out to be Wendell Vestibule) * Mick Nobone * Concretia Doily * Bev Category:Series 10 Category:Episodes